JNKMN

His name is pronounced “Janmen,” or literally “Junkman.” He comes from Fujisaki-machi, a small town in Aomori Prefecture, at the far north of Honshū, well away from Tokyo’s hip-hop circuits. Today he is one of the founding members of YENTOWN, the crew that counts Awich among its ranks. But getting there involved a few sharp turns.

JNKMN started rapping at sixteen. The influences he names in a 2024 Red Bull interview say a lot about what shaped him: ANARCHY, M.O.S.A.D., Mic Jack Production, THA BLUE HERB. Not J-pop or mainstream references, but the pillars of Japanese conscious and gangsta rap from the 2000s. His context at the time: junior high school with a concurrent rock band boom, a skate boom, and Japanese rap. He picks rap because it’s the one that hits him hardest. He operated for a while under other aliases, including “Tokarev” and “4649dz”, before locking in the JNKMN identity.

The vintage shop, Chaki Zulu, and the birth of YENTOWN

Early 2015 was the turning point. JNKMN and Chaki Zulu, producer and architect of YENTOWN, decide together to “pick the most solid guys and form a crew”. At the same time, JNKMN and PETZ are both working at a Shibuya vintage clothing store called JUNKMANIA. That’s where kZm starts a part-time job, and where MonyHorse keeps showing up with KOHH. The crew assembles through physical proximity as much as musical affinity. YENTOWN’s first move is “Higher Part II“. recorded under the name MONYPETZJNKMN and uploaded to YouTube. In the video, JNKMN wears a mask, a trace of a period he describes as when he was “making mistakes in the streets” and “flying high.” That’s not a metaphor.

In 2017, the night before the release party for MONYPETZJNKMN’s album 磊, JNKMN was arrested for cannabis possession. He serves his sentence and gets out in late 2018, around Christmas. That experience becomes “Jailbird,” a track on his first solo album JNKMN NOW (2020), with lyrics written from inside his cell. He doesn’t frame it as an anecdote. He puts it on the beat. JNKMN NOW arrives in February 2020. Then GOOD JUNKEE and DARC in 2021, SHIT and TURN UP in 2022, SAKASAMA in 2023.

In 2026, he releases two albums within a few months: OD then ZERO, plus the single “AGERO“. On Spotify, “Beyond The Lines” has passed 2.2 million streams, and “Seven Sinners” has passed 1.3 million. His audience is targeted, 32,000 monthly listeners, but consistent. In June 2025, YENTOWN released its first collective album, Y.E.N., ten years after the crew’s founding. JNKMN is on it, as he has been on every joint project since the start.

In the 2024 Red Bull interview, he describes YENTOWN as his home and says he’s never considered leaving. He also mentions a restaurant project. “JNKMN” is becoming “Jan-Men“, the Japanese word for noodles. He says it’s serious. Asked where he stands with his own rap after ten years in the game, he simply says that the Japanese scene changes fast, that he’s been watching it for a while now, and that he wants YENTOWN to become even bigger. It’s not an abstract statement of intent. It’s the logic of someone who has built everything piece by piece since Aomori.